Executive Order 11241:
This order will formally eliminate deferments for childless men who are married after August 26, 1965, between the ages of 19-26, and will be considered the same as single men in Class I-A with regard to the order of call. Students are exempt ...
Signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
August 26, 1965 - 17:30 (EST).
And that was all the motivation they needed. Young couples were heading to Vegas from all over the country: San Diego, Newark, Chicago, Kansas City, New Haven, Seattle, Denver, St. Paul, Dallas. They had until midnight (PST) to get hitched, and it had to be in Vegas, where we had no waiting period for licenses, no blood tests, and attain a marriage license for just $10. Our city was, for one night, the converging point for young groomsmen in this country who were trying to avoid the Vietnam draft.
They were lined up, ready to tie the knot at the county courthouse at 200 Third Street off Carson Avenue, on the third floor. Just one look at the photographs from old copies of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Las Vegas Sun tell the tale—an unwieldy mesh of cluttered heads, circuitous waiting patterns and anxious gazes that resembled more of a mosh pit at a contemporary rock concert than a county courthouse.
"I came back to the office from performing a ceremony at the Dunes at around 9:30 p.m., and it was packed," said retired Senior Judge James Brennan, who was the Justice of the Peace that busy night. "I knew they had a mission to get married before midnight."
"There were at least 50 couples waiting outside the courthouse," said Larry Fugate, a then-20-year- old reporter for the Review-Journal, who was covering one of his first features for the paper.
"My God, they were dressed so casually," Fugate continued, "people were getting married in jeans, T-shirts, you name it. I even remember one groom was wearing sandals!"
"There was very little security," said Lidia Cartwright, Judge Brennan's assistant on that memorable night. "It was just a mass of people, and everything was so rushed. I stood in as a witness on many of the marriages, and even saw one girl lend her veil to another young bride just so she could look appropriate."
Another man recalled, "I just remember arriving in Las Vegas 7:30 p.m. that night with my fiancée on (the now defunct) Bonanza Airlines." He was one of the nervous grooms that evening who, despite 40 years passing since the incident, still feels some discomfort from today's polarized political climate, and agreed to be interviewed only if his identity was withheld. "We made the flight at the last minute and had a layover in Denver—we were just hoping we'd get to the courthouse in time."
The worst wasn't over once they arrived, as the city's reputation for playing host to some sharp opportunists proved accurate.
"The cabdriver really stuck it to us, because he knew we had no choice but to pay him to get to the courthouse." Sadly, public transportation in the city 40 years ago (Las Vegas Transit as it was known then) was not exactly celebrated for its reliability, leaving the taxicab as the key option if you had to get around town. "It was something like $40, just to go Downtown, but we had no choice, it's not like we could hitchhike."
And the night kept progressing ...
"By the time we got to the courthouse, there was this huge line and sign on the lawn that read 'standing room only!' We knew then it was going to be a long night."
Records show that in the final two hours before midnight, Brennan performed a whopping 67 ceremonies in the tight stretch, well above his average of seven a night. Yet unlike the proverbial Cinderella tale of the clock striking midnight, Judge Brennan does admit to a little hedging: He had to cut some of the words out of the ceremony to expedite the process; grouped a few couples together in the final moments in the eleventh hour; and most cleverly, he played with Father Time: "We hung typewriter covers over the clocks at quarter to 12 and assumed it was still the 26th." Judge Brennan countered any questions of the validity of the marriage license dates swiftly. "If it was good enough for the Legislature, then it's good enough for the Justice of the Peace."
Indeed, if you have visions that this particular night had the frenetic actions and mercurial pacing of a classic Howard Hawks screwball farce, you're not far off the mark.
"I was getting the craziest proposals," recalls Cartwright, "These men were calling me that evening asking for my hand in marriage. Especially from back East, a lot of them called from New York and New Jersey, proposing right over the phone." She politely refused their offer. "I told them I was already spoken for, and one gentleman replied, 'Are you sure?'"
Still, for all the whimsical bents to the anecdotes, the undercurrent was unmistakable.
"Most of the couples didn't want to give their name," remembered Fugate, "they just wanted to get it over with.
"One young man from New Jersey was very straightforward: 'I don't want to die in Vietnam.' That was the sentiment you had with a lot of people, not just with the young couples, but some of the parents who accompanied them. You really got the impression through all the fear and uncertainty that this was their last salvation."
"It was a very difficult time," remembered the interviewee who wished to remain anonymous. "We had doubts of it then. What surprised me is that it wasn't just a generational issue, because I saw a lot of parents there who were just as anxious to see their kids get married as well as us."
Fugate concurred.
"One father was getting very angry when a television reporter approached his son—I mean he got belligerent and told him that it was none of his business."
"Obviously, the support varied for us," recalled our anonymous interviewee, with a trace of sadness in his voice. "It varied, my parents said 'Do it' since I didn't have the money for college, but I spoke with a couple in front of us where the bride's father was a WWII vet, and he wasn't keen on what she was doing. I felt bad for her boyfriend."
Eventually, the clock did find its way to the other side of midnight. By then the city was cooling down from a very heady evening. The couples who made a mad dash to Vegas, with few exceptions, got married; all the print and television reporters had their stories; and the nearby hotels had a few more bookings. But what of our participants for the story, what were their plans for August 27th?
Judge James Brennan:
"I finished up around 2 in the morning, and after I left the office I had a beer at the back bar of the Horseshoe Casino."
Lidia Cartwright:
"I was just tired. I told him (Judge Brennan) that I needed a long sleep and that I might be in late tomorrow."
Larry Fugate:
"I was tired, but I had to finish the copy with little turnaround time, so I pounded it out that night while the details of the night were still fresh."
Anonymous:
"We spent $8 on the ceremony, and my wife and I had little money between us. So we killed time and went to this theater Downtown (The Fremont Theatre) before we caught our morning flight back home."
He did remember the name of the film.
"It was Von Ryan's Express with Frank Sinatra. We caught the last show, around 1 in the morning."
The irony of watching a war film while having just escaped the draft wasn't lost on him.
"We had no choice, we didn't even have enough money for a room."
With so little money, how did this groom and bride scrape the money to take a cab to catch their return flight at McCarran Airport?
"We couldn't afford a cab, and we almost missed our flight." He was tight for time in the interview. "There's a story there, but I'll have to tell you about that another time. I have a feeling you'll be calling me again about my memories again."
Possibly, but let's hope that if we do have "another time," the political climate in this country will have a little better equilibrium; and maybe then he'll feel comfortable enough to reveal his identity.